National Basketball Association

Is there another level for Utah Jazz star Donovan Mitchell?

Updated Dec. 24, 2021 11:16 p.m. ET

By Ric Bucher
FOX Sports NBA Writer

The first time I asked NBA talent evaluators about Utah Jazz star Donovan Mitchell, it was at the end of his rookie year. That was also the last time. Until now.

The question then was who — given the choice between Mitchell, Ben Simmons and Jayson Tatum — they’d choose as a franchise cornerstone. Mitchell got the most votes. Rival GMs and coaches raved about him, both as a player and as a person.

This time the question was much simpler: What happened to that Donovan Mitchell?

It’s not that Mitchell has fallen off by any means. He’s a two-time All-Star. He averaged a league-leading 36.3 points in the bubble playoffs. Four years running, he has never failed to get the Jazz into the playoffs. He has never averaged fewer than 20 points per game four years running, either. You can write his seasonal production into the scorebook in Sharpie: 3-4 rebounds, 4-5 assists, 20-something points.

And that’s just it. He has been steady — not ascending.

Mitchell arrived with such a thunderous and unexpected bang that sky-high expectations were created. The 13th pick in the 2017 draft, an undersized shooting guard out of Louisville with a reputation for being unable to shoot, flipped to the Jazz for two more power forwards by the already power-forward-laden Denver Nuggets, Mitchell proved to be a bigger surprise than their previous No. 13 pick, Karl Malone.

A late add to the slam-dunk contest, he became the first rookie since Zach LaVine to win it. Then he led the Jazz to a first-round playoff upset of the Russell Westbrook/Paul George/Carmelo Anthony Oklahoma City Thunder, and the sky-high expectations followed.

His timing couldn’t have been more perfect, either, with the Jazz faithful needing a new hero after Gordon Hayward broke their hearts by skipping to Boston that same summer. Mitchell and the Jazz were so captivating that the league deemed them worthy of a Christmas Day game, their first in more than 20 years, an honor last year’s league-leading record earned them again this year.

But if Mitchell’s trajectory that first year was straight up, it has been level ever since. And no one is more aware of that than Mitchell. Before this season, he told the Salt Lake Tribune, "I think there’s another level I can get to. I’ve said that every year, but I think it’s the truth." Inherent in that statement is the concession that he has yet to reach it.

Although Mitchell hasn’t evolved quite the way his rookie year portended, I was stunned by the starkly different tone of the responses to this survey. In the first one, a GM gushed about Mitchell as the kind of guy you’d be thrilled to have your daughter bring home from college, "a high-character kid who gets it, a mature-beyond-his-years guy," in addition to his being "the best all-around player" of the three.

There was none of that this time. Granted, you wouldn’t question your daughter’s sanity if she brought the current Mitchell home, but you also wouldn’t be heartbroken if it didn’t last. "He has turned into a diva," one Western Conference scout said. "A non-elite All-Star," an Eastern Conference scout noted.

"I don’t know that there’s more to his game to unlock," said another.

As harsh as all that might sound, especially considering how Mitchell was once viewed, some of it is simply a function of his size. Listed as 6-foot-1 and 215 pounds, Mitchell has had to play with reckless abandon to score, which has impacted his durability. He has never missed significant time, but all too often has had to play through gritted teeth because of a nagging injury. A badly sprained ankle limited him to 53 regular-season games last year and had him struggling as the Clippers upset the Jazz in the second round, this after the Jazz posted the best record in the league.

"He’s 6-foot-1 and not an elite passer or decision-maker," the first Eastern Conference scout said. "He has done a great job of maximizing himself, but I think we’re seeing a fully formed version of him right now. He’s not a player who is going to lead a team to a championship, and I don’t think he ever will be. There is a big gap between Donovan and the top group in the NBA: [Nikola] Jokic, Steph [Curry], KD [Kevin Durant], Giannis [Antetokounmpo], [Joel] Embiid, LeBron [James]. He’s in the mix with the rest of the non-elite All-Stars."

That is probably not what Jazz fans want to hear. Posting the best record in the league last year raised title hopes in Utah for the first time since the days of John Stockton and Malone. The second Eastern Conference scout he believes that answering that hope is the key for Mitchell to restore his rosy image.

"The biggest thing for him is he probably needs to get to the Finals," the scout said.

An attitude restoration would be enough for the Western Conference scout. Asked what Mitchell has to do to get to the next level, he said, "Don’t forget what got him here: toughness and hard work. He’s acting more like he thinks he’s a superstar instead of the hard-nosed grinder that got him here. Be more consistent in getting his teammates involved. Avoid the 3-for-20 games. And play a high level of defense."

The overall disenchantment with Mitchell indeed appears to be fueled, in part, by the sense that he considers himself to be among the league’s elite — and wants to be treated accordingly. All three scouts were turned off by a dispute last summer between Mitchell and the Jazz’s medical staff over how his ankle injury was handled.

Despite the staff’s misgivings, Mitchell was adamant about keeping his vow to play in the playoffs and spent the offseason working with his personal trainers in Miami. When he returned, the team’s vice president of performance health care, Mike Elliott, stepped down. Jazz GM Justin Zanik insisted that there was no connection between Elliott’s departure and the dispute, but no one I spoke to is buying that.

The expectation that Mitchell would build on his rookie year was also based on the thinking that he would evolve into a scoring point guard in the mold of James Harden or Dwyane Wade, but that hasn’t happened. Ricky Rubio served as Utah's primary point guard that first sensational season. Mitchell has gradually taken over more of the ballhandling and playmaking duties, but he has never averaged more than five assists for a season, and his career assist-to-turnover ratio is less than 2-to-1.

With him still just 25 years old, there would seem to be time for Mitchell to improve, but the Western Conference scout doesn’t see in him the innate sensibility of a consummate floor leader. "He plays on instinct instead of a thinking man’s game," he said.

The first Eastern Conference scout sees some room for growth, just not enough for Mitchell to reach the top echelon of NBA players. "He can improve a little around the edges," the scout said. "Defend with more effort and focus, shoot a better percentage from 3, become a little better at creating good shots for his teammates. He’s a top-20 player who could sniff 10th-ish-best in a year or two. He has never made an All-NBA team. So getting third-team All-NBA this year, which I think he will, which implies he’s a top-15 player, would be a nice step for him."

Also worth noting: A summerlong feud between Mitchell and All-Star center Rudy Gobert, which started after Gobert became the first NBA player infected with COVID-19 and passed the virus to Mitchell, didn’t help his overall image. Mitchell was reluctant to forgive Gobert, which left the Jazz fearful that he wouldn’t accept their offer of a maximum-salary contract and, instead, would bolt through free agency as Hayward had done.

Mitchell eventually signed the deal in late November, but there was a hint of petulance over how long it took him. He was no longer viewed as the player lauded in the first survey for "the way he relates to his teammates."

The league-wide sense is that Mitchell won’t sign another max deal, that he pines to be in a bigger market, which understandably makes both franchise and fan base nervous. Salt Lake City has never been a free-agent destination, but every few years, the franchise manages to draft an All-Star-caliber player — Deron Williams in 2005, Hayward in 2010, now Mitchell — and just as they reach their primes, those players find their way elsewhere.

League sources say Mitchell has plenty of advisers who believe his play and personality are being wasted in Utah, that his loss of stardom wattage is a byproduct of where he plays and the franchise’s free-agent challenges. The Minnesota Timberwolves have dealt with the same innuendo concerning Karl-Anthony Towns.

One scout, citing Mitchell and Towns both being from the New York City area and being represented by Creative Artists Agency clients (the same agency that employed Knicks team president Leon Rose), said, "The smart money has Donovan and Towns both with the Knicks in three years. Not sure that’s a title team, but if you’re the Knicks, you take it."

But that’s three years down the road. Plenty of time for the Jazz to accomplish something that could alter the trajectory — both theirs and his. Maybe.

Ric Bucher is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. He previously wrote for Bleacher Report, ESPN The Magazine and The Washington Post and has written two books, "Rebound," the story of NBA forward Brian Grant’s battle with young onset Parkinson’s, and "Yao: A Life In Two Worlds," the story of NBA center Yao Ming. He also has a daily podcast, "On The Ball with Ric Bucher." Follow him on Twitter @RicBucher.